HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsBe confident in your staff’s ability to reduce risk by providing compliance training that changes behavior.
View All ProductsDevelop next-level people for next-level care by prioritizing quality and safety improvements.
View All ProductsStandardize policy and procedure management with an automated, customized, and centralized system.
View All ProductsEstablish a culture of belonging with education supporting DEI, wellness, engagement, and leadership development.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsStreamline the revenue cycle management process and protect your bottom line with expert-backed education.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsCreate engaging and impactful learning experiences that meet the unique needs of your acute care staff.
View All ProductsTackle all the challenges of provider directory management within a health plan with a single solution tailored to your specific needs.
View All ProductsOur affordable CVO credentialing services establish patient safety by enabling primary source verification for your healthcare organization.
View All ProductsFinally, a comprehensive resource to support collecting, storing, and sharing credentialing data with ease.
View All ProductsIntegrate with Epic to validate and add new providers directly to your provider master file.
View All ProductsHealthcare workforce management is essential. We provide advanced scheduling solutions for organizations to solve issues such as nurse retention
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreWhat is Virtual Reality?
Virtual Reality (VR)VR allows one to “enter” an alternative reality by wearing a head-mounted display (HMD) that lets users feel as if they are in the virtual world they see. This technology has mainly been used for entertainment, but over the past decade developers have expanded the capabilities of VR headsets and created programs that are now being used in healthcare.
Khor et al. wrote on the changing digital surgical environment and its effects on training and usage in surgeries. Khor et al. (2016) defined VR as technology that “generates an immersive, completely artificial computer-simulated image and environment with real-time interaction.” Entering an artificial world for education purposes has endless possibilities that would allow medical students and professionals to better understand the conditions of their patients and learn the skills to care for them in an entirely new way.
Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Train Medical Students
One of the most popular uses of VR in healthcare is to train medical students. In 2016, Dr. Shafi Ahmed performed the first operation to be live-streamed in 360-degree video. This allowed students worldwide to watch the live procedure online or through a VR headset (Davis, 2016).
This use of VR technology allows viewers to experience the entire operating room and learn from all members on the surgical team, having the potential to significantly change the educational opportunities available for students anywhere in the world.
Understand Patients’ Conditions
A project entitled “We are Alfred” by Embodied Labs uses VR to show students and doctors what many of their elderly patients with hearing or vision loss experience. This VR simulation helps break down the disconnect between medical professionals and their patients by fostering understanding and empathy (Meskó, 5 Ways).
Similarly, the company Viscira has created a VR program that allows practitioners to experience the hallucinations of a schizophrenic patient (Geyer, 2016).
Ease Phobias and Anxiety
VR has been used to treat patients with significant phobias through exposure therapy. The Virtual Reality Medical Center in California has been offering this treatment for over ten years, and has had significant success treating those with phobias and anxiety disorders (Wallis, 2016).
Additionally, a VR game named BraveMind was created specifically to treat soldiers suffering from PTSD. The creator, Skip Rizzo, built virtual scenarios similar to what soldiers may have experienced and explains, “I can put people in these worlds and change the time of day, lighting, ambient sounds, people walking around, insurgents popping up” (Geyer, 2016).
When commenting on the performance of VR when treating anxieties, Rizzo says, “Four meta analyses in the last six or seven years show VR outperforms traditional exposure…You can build a controlled environment, manipulate the stimuli to test, train or treat users under a range of conditions.” This ability to give immediate feedback and alter the simulation while the patient is in the environment provides an excellent option for patient therapy (Geyer, 2016).
Rehabilitate Stroke Victims
The Swiss company MindMaze has created a VR program called MindMotionPro to help patients who have suffered from a stroke practice moving their limbs (Meskó, 5 Ways).
Pain Management
The University of Washington’s HITLab collaborated with the Harborview Burn Center to create a VR program to help burn patients with pain management. Patients can enter “SnowWorld” when having their wound dressings changed in order to help distract them from the painful procedure (Wallis, 2016).
References:
Davis, N. (2016). Cutting edge theatre: world’s first virtual reality operation goes live. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/14/cutting-edge-theatre-worlds-first-virtual-reality-operation-goes-live#img-1
Geyer, S. (2016). What will augmented and virtual reality technology do for healthcare? Healthcare IT News. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/what-will-augmented-and-virtual-reality-technology-do-healthcare
Khor, W. S., Baker, B., Amin, K., Chan, A., Patel, K., & Wong, J. (2016). Augmented and virtual reality in surgery—the digital surgical environment: applications, limitations and legal pitfalls. Annals of Translational Medicine, 4(23), 454. http://doi.org/10.21037/atm.2016.12.23
Meskó, B. (2017). 5 Ways medical virtual reality is already changing healthcare. The Medical Futurist. http://medicalfuturist.com/5-ways-medical-vr-is-changing-healthcare/
Wallis, T. (2016). 6 VR uses that will blow your mind. VR Intelligence. http://www.vr-intelligence.com/6-vr-uses-healthcare-will-blow-your-mind
This article is taken from our recent complimentary RQI-focused eBook, The Future of Learning: New Technologies Influencing Clinical Development. Download the eBook here.
HealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceBe confident in your staff’s ability to reduce risk by providing compliance training that changes behavior.
View All ProductsDevelop next-level people for next-level care by prioritizing quality and safety improvements.
View All ProductsStandardize policy and procedure management with an automated, customized, and centralized system.
View All ProductsEstablish a culture of belonging with education supporting DEI, wellness, engagement, and leadership development.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementStreamline the revenue cycle management process and protect your bottom line with expert-backed education.
View All ProductsLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ResuscitationIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsComprehensive, industry-leading provider onboarding and credentialing software that validate health outcomes and support provider assessment.
View All CredentialingOur affordable CVO credentialing services establish patient safety by enabling primary source verification for your healthcare organization.
View All ProductsIntegrate with Epic to validate and add new providers directly to your provider master file.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare workforce management is essential. We provide advanced scheduling solutions for organizations to solve issues such as nurse retention
View All Products